Windies cricket cracking down on player withdrawals

ST JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC – Players withdrawing from West Indies squads on two consecutive occasions will now have to advise the chairman of selectors on their availability, before they can be considered for future selection.

The new policy was approved by Cricket West Indies at a Board of Directors meeting in Barbados two weeks ago and is aimed at reversing a recent trend, where players have opted out of selected squads at the last moment.

A newly-formed Technical Committee, headed by cricket West Indies vice-president Emmanuel Nanthan, will oversee the policy as well as advise the selection panel on other issue of players eligibility.

“We have had a number of withdrawals in recent times and it has severely impacted on the selection panel’s ability to choose a settled squad for international matches,” said director of cricket, Jimmy Adams.

“Going forward, this is one of the areas that the Technical Committee will have to adjudicate upon to bring more balance to the situation.

“The directors’ decision to form a Technical Committee will allow for a more robust and efficient process to decide on player eligibility, player contract gradings and the awarding of NOCs.”

The issue of player availability proved a headache for the Courtney Browne-led panel last December on the Windies ill-fated tour of New Zealand.

Off-spinner Sunil Narine was a late withdrawal from the Twenty20 squad and was followed by Kieron Pollard weeks later. They were replaced by Ashley Nurse and Shimron Hetmyer, already part of the one-squad on tour.

Last month, the quartet of Narine, Pollard, Darren Bravo and Andre Russell, ruled themselves out of selection for the ongoing ICC World Cup qualifiers in Zimbabwe, prompting CWI president, Dave Cameron, to warn that “we’ll probably not invite those players to be a part of Cricket West Indies going forward.”

Meanwhile, the new Technical Committee will also oversee and decide on all requests for No Objection Certificates, review the system used to determine the senior men’s team contract grades, and will be also tasked with with creating a grading system fo

Jimmy Adams

r women’s team contracts.

“The committee will serve as an important resource to the CWI Cricket Committee on specific cricket matters,” Adams stressed.

The six-member committee will also comprise Adams, Browne, Windies men’s head coach, Stuart Law; women’s head coach, Hendy Springer; chairman of the Cricket Committee, Enoch Lewis and a nominee of the West Indies Players’ Association.